Jared gave her a little shove across the threshold and she stumbled into Strike, who took her by the arm in an identical manner, jerked her so that she would get a move on, and began making a beeline with her towards the meeting room door.
“What are you doing?” she objected, glancing over her shoulder at the closing door where Jared had disappeared into the hot, late morning. Strike hadn’t answered, so she dug her heels in and shoved him, not that it got him to release her. “Who’s in there? Why do you want me to go in there?” she demanded. “You don’t have to do this! Don’t do something you’ll regret just to get into the MC!” As she twisted and jerked, trying to free herself, Strike’s grip only got tighter and though his eyes told her he truly didn’t want to hurt her, she knew with every fiber of her being that if she went into that meeting room, she would never come out. Was Asa in there? Would he kill her like he had warned would happen? Her heart was in her throat and she was losing strength.
With whiplash speed, Strike flung the meeting room door open and urged her inside with a little push but he did not enter in after her. Instead, he quickly slammed the door behind her, leaving Samantha alone with Rodney and Carl Boone, and Kyle Flanagan seated across from them. On the table in front of them were cold beers and ashtrays littered with cigarette butts. Rodney, who was a mountain of a man didn’t have to do much beyond look at Samantha for her bones to tremble, jutted his chin at one of the empty chairs, indicating she could have a seat. Hesitantly, she neared the chair and glanced cautiously at Carl, who was knocking back his beer, and then Kyle just as he clamped a cigarette between his teeth and lit it. Rodney was the first to speak as soon as she had settled uncomfortably into her chair. “Do you know why you’re here?”
Reminding herself to breathe, she forced some air into her lungs so her brain wouldn’t be oxygen deprived. She was so terrified and her voice shook as she said, “You don’t want me to write about Johnny Fox?”
The president of the MC snuck a sideways glance at his twin brother, Carl and though they hadn’t looked identical in years—Rodney was all muscles and brute force, Carl had gone soft in the middle and his arms were only half the size of his brother’s—the same exact grin came over each of their faces.
“You think?” Rodney asked in an alarmingly similar tone to the one his son used when he was being sarcastic. Carl jumped in then and said, “You thought you could shake that little tail of yours and get whatever you wanted, and there would be no consequences?”
Samantha swallowed hard and shrank in her seat.
“It would be one thing if you had kept to your side of the street,” Rodney went on. “If you had stayed with your kind, reported from the press conference, remembered what you really are.”
“A fucking reporter,” Carl barked.
Kyle had been awfully quiet, but he made up for it by glaring daggers at her.
“But you didn’t do that, did you?” Rodney said in thick deep voice.
“People know I’m here,” Samantha said in a shaky voice. “My editor knows exactly where I am at all times. You won’t get away with this.”
Ignoring her pleas, Carl informed her, “You’d be fucking shocked at what we get away with.” Oh God, she thought. This is the end, isn’t it?
“No one knows what’s taking place in this room right now,” Rodney said. “And no one is going to know. Only the four people seated at this table.” Carl nodded affirmatively and Kyle followed suit before snubbing out the butt of his cigarette in the nearest ashtray.
“The difference between you living or dying boils down to loyalty,” Rodney explained. “You’re way past writing the story you want. That ship sailed the second you started fucking with us, do you understand?”
Samantha nodded emphatically, eager to learn of her way out of all of this.
“We received some information last night,” he went on, glancing at Carl. “The irony is that we sent Asa to get answers from the Blue Spades and even though I haven’t talked to those sons of bitches in ages, as it turns out they got in touch with some information about my son.”
Carl grimaced and Kyle couldn’t even look up from the ashtray, which told her that whatever they had learned, they were wishing it wasn’t true.
“You want to save your ass,” Rodney pointed out. “I don’t know if my son trusts you or not, but you’ve certainly proven you know how to get close to him.”
“I’ll do it,” Samantha shot, entirely unsure of what she was preemptively agreeing to, but knowing that she had to get out of this room. “Whatever it is.”
The twins exchanged another look then Rodney said, “Asa spoke with Fox that night.” Why would Asa keep something like that from his MC? She thought, suddenly remembering the second telephone number that had dialed Johnny Fox on the night he was killed.
“I need to know what was said during their call and I need to know if Asa saw him later that night,” Rodney explained.
“And you think he’ll tell me one way or the other?” she asked, highly skeptical. When they didn’t respond, she asked another question, “You trust me? What makes you think I won’t write an article about what I find?”
“Because you value your life,” Kyle grinned, locking eyes with her. “And because I’ll be on your tail the whole time.”
“You’re good at digging,” Carl said. “Just bring us the dirt you find.”
Chapter Eleven
After stopping off at her room in the motor inn and changing out of the pantsuit that had been making her life miserable, Samantha drove with the AC blasting through the oppressively hot temperatures of Death Falls to Asa’s little house. On her way out of the clubhouse, Jared Hurst had made a point to let her know she could find him there.
He had looked concerned approaching her, his boots stirring up dust as he slightly dragged his feet, his head tilted to the side in a manner that hadn’t at all matched his stature or personality. Jared wasn’t in the top five. He wasn’t on the committee that met in that room. And he would have had no way of knowing what specifically had been said to Samantha. But he knew what Samantha meant to one of his closest friends and that’s why he had seemed to ask her with his eyes what was going on.
She hadn’t said a thing.
Pulling into the dusty parking area outside of Asa’s house where his Harley was propped on its kickstand, Samantha tried to breathe to loosen the knot that had formed in her stomach. This should be so easy, she told herself, throwing her Prius into park and pulling the key from the engine. Rodney Boone wanted the exact same thing as her editor, Harry Walsh—the truth. So why was she terrified?
Because if and when Harry wielded the truth, it would have the power to kill only a reputation. The Boones wouldn’t be nearly so kind and the fact that they were now fixated on Asa seemed unusually cut throat and cold hearted.
Samantha reminded herself that just because the Black Skulls suspected Asa of keeping a secret about what might have really happened to Johnny Fox that night didn’t mean that Asa himself was responsible. And with that she finally climbed out of her car, her stiletto heels tapping into the crunchy dirt. She heard clanging and banging coming from the far side of the house, around back.
Dressed in a tight, brown leather skirt and Motley Crue tee shirt hanging off her right shoulder that gave her biker chick outfit an 80’s flair, her hair blown out wild and full, she started off walking towards the back of the house, hugging the perimeter where it provided a few feet of shade. When she reached the back yard where the yellow grass was losing its battle with the scorching sun—clinging to life in patches, surrounded by pale, dry dirt—she found Asa lying on his dolly, an old Ford pickup rusting out in the heat above him, his strong legs bent and poking out. It didn’t exactly look like the type of vehicle that could be salvaged no matter how much work you put into it, but Asa was banging away at the undercarriage none-the-less.
Perhaps he heard the clicks of her stiletto heels as she approached because the b
anging stopped and he began rolling out from under the truck to find her standing over him, the blazing sun behind her head like some kind of halo.
“Samantha?”
“Hey,” she said softly as she drank in the sight of him.
He was wearing a looser pair of dark, denim jeans that were heavily stained with grease. His belt was the same, but he had completely abandoned his shirt. He looked damn sexy lifting up onto his elbows so that he could get a proper look at her. The firm wall of his chest stiffened and his arms were flexed and bulging, covered in tattoos. But his abs were the real show. It wasn’t a six-pack. It was an eight-pack and every muscle was highly defined. For a second, Samantha saw herself licking that very grid of ab muscles before working her way down to his-
“Where’d you go last night?” he asked, sitting upright before rising to his feet.
As he dusted the seat of his jeans, she said, “I didn’t leave until the morning, but I went to a press conference…about Johnny Fox.”
“Fuck. Jesus Samantha, are you trying to get killed?”
“No, but trying or not it looks like it’s probably going to happen. That is unless I give your club information about you.”
“What the fuck?”
“Maybe we should sit down?” Asa looked dazed as he nodded. He took the hand she offered and followed her up on the narrow porch. He sat down in the lawn chair and she sat on the railing and nervously swung her legs back and forth.
“Talk to me, Samantha.”
She cleared her throat and finally started talking. She told him about the press conference and Wanda being there and then she told him about the meeting at the MC. She hated the way his face went pale as she spoke. She knew that all the ramifications of what she was saying, about what his club suspected him of, were running through his mind. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to go back in time and not be a fucking idiot. When she finished talking she expected him to tell her to get the fuck off his property. Instead, he reached over and stroked her wild mane of strawberry blonde hair back to get a full view of her big, dark green eyes. She wondered if she looked as drop-dead tired as she felt. She was weary to her bones and he looked like he was as well.
“Do you hate me?”
He chuckled. “I wish,” he said. The look on Samantha’s face made him laugh outright. “I’m sorry, but you have to admit that my life would be a hell of a lot easier if I’d never met you.”
She couldn’t stop herself from smiling. The smile turned into a laugh. She did have to admit that he was right. She had royally fucked this all up. The story was fucked up. This thing…whatever it was, between her and Asa was fucked up…and her life was completely fucked up. Her job being in jeopardy should be the least of her worries since now it was her life and Asa’s life and here they both sat laughing like a couple of fucking crack heads as it all fell apart. When she was finally able to breathe again she asked, “What are we going to do?”
He stopped laughing and in a sober voice he asked, “Did Kyle seem like he was being forced to be there?”
She could see the deep hurt in his dark eyes. Rodney and Carl were one thing…they were families, but Asa had been bullied by them his entire life. But Kyle was his friend, his friend that would be following her around, waiting for her to get something on Asa and report back. “I’m sorry, but honestly, no. He was smiling. He didn’t look stressed at all. He’s following me by the way, watching us right now.”
“Fuck.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and when he looked back up at her he was smiling. He looked like a little boy that was up to something. She couldn’t help but smile too.
“What?”
“He’s watching us now, huh?”
“Yeah. He followed me out here. I’m just thankful they didn’t make me wear a wire.”
He grinned even wider. “It would have been fun to search you again. How would you feel about giving my buddy Kyle a little show?”
“A show?”
He moved in close to her and she automatically wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him. For a second her mind wandered away from the current bullshit and she simply enjoyed being in his arms. She wondered how it was that they were so comfortable with one another like this. It happened so fast that she hadn’t even seen it coming. And now she was expected to hunt for information and give it to people that would want to use it to hurt him. She could definitely think of better ways to spend her time with Asa Boone.
“I just think if poor Kyle has to spend his days sitting out there across the dirt road with his binoculars, entertaining him is the least we could do. What do you say?”
Samantha grinned up at him. “I’m thinking my new answer to everything is going to be, what the hell?” He laughed and grabbed her hips and then walked his fingers back and squeezed her ass hard before smacking it with his open hand. She squealed. He spun her around so that she was facing toward the house, away from Kyle if he was watching. He cupped her tits through that Motley Crue tee shirt, stroked her warm stomach and ran his hands down and pulled up that little leather skirt. His hand was suddenly on her hot pussy and her panties were almost instantly soaked. He put his hands on her sides and slid her t-shirt up and over her head. Then he cupped her breasts through her sexy black lace bra and thumbed her hard nipples. She reached back between them and began unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans. When she got them undone he spun her back around to face him and she slid a hand down into his jeans and wrapped her warm hand around his cock. She began to stroke it from base to tip and she felt it stiffen and grow in her hand.
He groaned in her ear in response as his hands traveled the length of her bare stomach until he reached the edge of her leather skirt. It took a moment of exploring, but he found the side-zipper and slowly pulled it down, Samantha all the while continued delivering sensual strokes to his thick cock, a flutter of hot tingles blossoming between her legs at the thought of it thrusting into her. As soon as her leather skirt hit the porch she stepped out of it—one stiletto heel after the next—taking advantage of the opportunity to widen her stance. She thought she might be uncomfortable knowing that Kyle was watching but as she stood there in her lace underwear with Asa fondling everything he could get his hands on, she realized she was as turned on as fuck. She wasn’t sure when she turned into such a pervert, but if she had to guess she’d say it was the exact moment she first laid eyes on Asa Boone.
Asa turned her around again, this time facing in the direction of where Kyle would be and then he slid his large hand down the front of her black, lace panties, causing her to want to scream out in ecstasy. Soon his long fingers were fondling the slippery folds of her pussy, teasing her with a delicate massage that didn’t penetrate her deeply at all. He was aiming to turn her on as much as possible. He wanted her to squirm, to moan and beg to be ravished, and she probably would, but not before she pleasured him in the precise way she had been fantasizing about whenever she took his cock in her hands.
As amazing as his fingers felt caressing her hot, aching pussy, she turned back to face him at the risk of those fingers falling away. When she looked up, his expression was smoldering. He wanted her and badly. His dark eyes were soft, the lids heavy. His lips were pressed into a hard line, his jaw clenched as though his state of wanting to fuck her could be contained no other way.
Holding his gaze for a long moment, she grasped hold of his bulging biceps, feeling how real he was, how real this was—they really were something together, weren’t they?—and then she slowly lowered down to her knees, taking his jeans and boxer-briefs with her, until she came face-to-face with his perfectly smooth and beautiful pink cock.
He groaned down at her and she smiled up, hoping he liked the view of her perky tits beneath the lace bra she wore. The lace was thin and didn’t leave much to the imagination. She stuck her ass out a little bit, taking hold of his rock hard cock and gently guiding it into her watering mouth. Again, he groaned, this time his e
yes drifting shut as he tipped his head back, completely surrendering to the dead-sexy sensations she was delivering.
As she licked and sucked, pulling as much of his cock into her mouth as she could each time and moaning as she sucked the length of it down to the wide tip, she snuck peeks up at him. Nothing turned her on like seeing him melt in response to the pleasure she was giving him. That look on his face—the crooked grin and soft gaze—made her wet, and his dick was the perfect combination of salty and sweet. He tasted amazing, but she didn’t want him to cum in her mouth, not today. The party wasn’t going to end just yet and Asa must have been thinking the same thing, because as much as he was loving the blow job, he took hold of her shoulders, urged her to her stiletto feet, and held her tightly against him, his hard cock slipping between her fleshy upper thighs and giving her pussy a whole new reason to ache.
“You dirty, little girl,” he groaned, holding her face now.
“Was I doing something wrong?” she asked innocently as she gripped his muscular hips and began shifting her thighs so that his cock would brush this way and that between her thighs, stirring up warm friction that caused him to groan once again and lose his train of thought. She let out a breathy laugh, loving the effect she consistently had on him.
“No,” he said in a deep whisper. “You weren’t doing anything wrong. I just want to feel your wet, little, slippery pussy wrapped tightly around my cock.”
“Mmm,” she moaned, as she melted against him, her tits resting on the firm wall of his chest. He gave her ass a healthy squeeze and then unfastened her bra. After letting it fall away, he pulled her close and her hard nipples grazed across his muscular pecs.
God, everything about him turned her on. You think the Black Skulls are going to let you drive out of Death Falls if you don’t get them what they want? Where that voice came from suddenly, she had no idea. The answer was no. She didn’t think they would let her drive away unpunished and unscathed. She might be naïve but she wasn’t stupid. The fact was that she decided on the drive between Poison and Asa’s cabin that she wasn’t going to give him up to them no matter what she found out. She wasn’t sure how they would survive this but she was sure that she only wanted to survive it with him.
ASA: BLACK SKULLS MC Page 11